Fodor's Expert Review Stanway House & Fountain

This perfect Cotswold manor of glowing limestone, Stanway House dates from the Jacobean era. Its triple-gabled gatehouse is a Cotswold landmark, and towering windows dominate the house's Great Hall. They illuminate a 22-foot-long shuffleboard table from 1620 and an 18th-century bouncing exercise machine. The other well-worn rooms are adorned with family portraits, tattered tapestries, vintage armchairs, and, at times, Lord or Lady Neidpath themselves, the current owners. The partly restored baroque water garden has a modern fountain that shoots up 300 feet. The tallest in Britain, it shoots at 2:45 pm and 4 pm. Note that the house is only open in June through August, on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, and admission is cash-only. To get to Stanway, about 5 miles south of Broadway, take B4632 south from town, turning left at B4077.